The records contain outgoing calls for over 20 phone lines for a period of 2 months

May 14, 2013 08:22 GMT  ·  By

Normally, when the government wants phone records from an organization, it notifies them in advance and they enter negotiations. However, that hasn’t happened in the case of the Associated Press.

The US Justice Department secretly subpoenaed the phone records of AP reporters and editors for a period of two months. Information on more than 20 phone lines was seized.

According to the Associated Press, it’s uncertain if the records obtained by authorities included call duration or incoming calls, but they surely contained lists of outgoing calls from work and personal phones of reporters and office members in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn.

The reason for which the government wants the call records is uncertain. However, the most plausible theory is that the seizure is part of an investigation that targets individuals from within the government who provided information to the press.

Back in January, we learned that the FBI was on a mission to identify officials who leaked classified information to the press.

As expected, the AP is not happy about the situation. In a letter sent to Attorney General Eric Holder, AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt argued that there couldn’t be any justification for such “overbroad collection of telephone communications.” Pruitt demanded that all records are returned and copies destroyed.

“It is disturbing enough that the government appears to have violated its own regulations for subpoenas to the news media. However, this revelation also shows that we have a severe problem in protecting the privacy of our communications,” Electronic Frontier Foundation representatives noted.

“It is critical to update our privacy laws and our understanding of the Constitution, and reflect the realities of what law enforcement can determine from our records and other metadata about our communications stored with our communications providers, be they phone companies, ISPs or social networks.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has also commented on the matter.

“Obtaining a broad range of telephone records in order to ferret out a government leaker is an unacceptable abuse of power. Freedom of the press is a pillar of our democracy, and that freedom often depends on confidential communications between reporters and their sources,” said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.